Chosen: Beyond Fate

Under the harsh fluorescent lights, Ji Jue had the surreal feeling that he was dreaming.

He instinctively looked around. Aside from the people sprawled all over the floor, this seemed to be some kind of meeting room in complete disarray. Blood stained the walls, the ceiling, everything. Even the overpowering smell of disinfectant couldn't mask the stench of decay.

He blinked, and everything seemed slightly different for a moment, but the problem was... Wait, where’s my bike?! Horsey’s gone!

It hadn't come with him at all. Ji Jue reached for the holster beneath his ribs and came up empty. His gun was also gone, but when he checked his pockets, he found the corrupted bullets still safely tucked inside. His necklace, ring, and bell were all still on him as well.

A look of understanding dawned on his face. So alchemical items could be brought in after all. But the clothes he was wearing were just ordinary clothes, so why hadn't they disappeared too? Could it be that Horsey didn’t count as gear? Did the Time Ruin have some weirdly flexible rules about what could and couldn’t come in?

Still groggy, his head pounding, Ji Jue tried to recall what had happened before he was dragged inside.

After sensing that the location of the Time Ruin was rapidly approaching, his first instinct had been to gear up fully and ride Horsey into a remote, uninhabited location at full speed. But the faster he went, the more the Time Ruin seemed to close in on him.

In the end, he didn’t manage to escape. Only at the very last moment did he notice something in the interface of Mr. Watch. There was a small line of blinking text at the very bottom.

[Auto-traction program running.]

Ji Jue felt a surge of anger. He almost wanted to rip off the damn watch and smash it.

So it was you who dragged the Time Ruin here?!

But was it really the Time Ruin it was attracting? Or was it something else?

Ji Jue remembered the last thing Ji Jue saw before the Time Ruin swallowed him in that brief moment of blankness. The world had seemed to shatter. Or perhaps it had simply shed its disguise, revealing its true, broken form.

Above the cracked earth, flames spread endlessly, and fissures covered the scorched crimson sky. The bound stars flickered dimly, as if on the verge of collapse. Between heaven and earth, everything was shrouded in intricate spirit circuitry. These circuits interwove and overlapped, forming a vast net that seemed to forcibly bind the entire world together. It was everywhere and all-pervasive, and it was called Skyrail.

Ji Jue tried to carefully recall its appearance, but the scene quickly blurred and dissipated from his memory, leaving only a faint, indistinct impression.

His watch was only showing one final pop-up.

[Vehicle preparation in progress.]

Ji Jue had no idea what that meant.

In just a few seconds, he sorted out the situation. When he sighed and looked up, he finally noticed the figure standing at the doorway not far away.

He froze. Wait, who the hell are you?

“Finally awake?”

The eerie creature that could barely be called human looked up at him. He looked like a humanoid assembled from corpses. His body was riddled with cracks and stitched together roughly with sutures. Beneath a hunched back, two arms hung down from a white coat, one long and one short, and his fingers were sharp like blades.

Three elongated eyes swept over Ji Jue and the others chosen by the Time Ruin. The creature let out a sinister, crackling laugh.

“Good, good. All of you are excellent seedlings. With so many of you as new additions, o-our hospital will surely be able to save even more patients.”

As the words left his mouth, a shrill burst of laughter echoed from the far end of the hallway. Heavy, overlapping footsteps followed, as if a whole crowd was making its way toward them.

At last, groans rose from around the chaotic conference room. On the floor, the Chosen Ones drawn into the Time Ruin were finally waking up. They looked around in alarm. Some were wary, some were bewildered, while others were simply panicked. The moment they sensed that the atmosphere around them was completely different from the real world, realization dawned on their faces.

“Damn it. A Time Ruin?”

“Where the hell am I?”

“Don’t make a move! If we alert the abominations, none of us will survive!”

“What the hell is a Time Ruin?”

Amid the noise and confusion, several Chosen Ones stared warily at one another. Some who understood the situation were trying to gather information, some tried to run, and others walked forward attempting to talk. The scene quickly descended into chaos.

Outside the door, the heavy, overlapping footsteps were drawing near. Then entered in a steady stream a group of beings almost identical to the previous doctor, except these guys were even more grotesque and horrifying.

Traces of beastly traits could be spotted all over their bodies. Some had already lost their eyeballs entirely, having instead tendril-like appendages probing out from the empty sockets, writhing dexterously. Their faces wore exaggerated smiles, revealing rows of broken, razor-sharp teeth stained deep red. Others had already become faint, gray-black translucent shadows.

At the front of the group was a swollen, corpse-like figure resembling a bloated drowned body, his skin a sickly dark green. Putrid fluid seeped from his mouth and nose. When he spoke, his voice was thick with phlegm. “Mr. Qian, you’re here already? You're always so busy with hospital affairs. Your dedication is truly admirable.”

The stitched-together corpse known as Mr. Qian stepped aside. “I finished what I needed to do, so I came early. All the doctors newly hired this week are here.”

Immediately, every grotesquely deformed doctor turned to look at the people who had been dragged into the Time Ruin.

“Where’s the discipline? Didn’t anyone teach them?”

“They're all so young and full of energy.”

“Every generation brings forth new talent. How can our hospital not continue to thrive?”

“Exactly, exactly.”

Everyone felt a chill run down their spines from the eerie laughter and slurred voices. No one dared to speak or move carelessly anymore.

“Everyone, don’t be afraid. There’s no need to worry,” the swollen figure at the front said in a muffled voice. A smile seemed to form within the folds of its grotesquely bloated flesh. “N-now that you’re here at this hospital, we are all family. From today onward, I hope everyone will get along. As the hospital director, I welcome you all... most warmly.”

With that, he began to clap. All the “doctors” behind him began clapping as well.

The applause was oddly orderly, and it was so synchronized that it no longer sounded like celebration, but rather like the relentless beat of funeral drums, making everyone’s heart pound with dread.

Soon, accompanied by the squeaking of wheels, a cart was pushed into the room. It was brought before the group of captives. On it were white coats identical to those worn by the doctors. However, those coats were stained with grime, smeared with blood, and carried a strong stench of rot.

The director frowned, seemingly displeased. “What’s going on? Why are they so dirty?”

But just as quickly, that hallucinatory stench vanished. Even the white coats on the cart looked spotless again, carrying nothing but the clean scent of disinfectant.

The doctors’ warm, eager gazes settled on the people in the room. Their exaggerated smiles never wavered. They simply waited.

At last, the first person gathered the courage to reach out with trembling hands, picked up a white coat, and put it on. Then came a second volunteer, and a third. Ji Jue did the same, making no attempt to stand out. The moment he touched the fabric, he could tell it was nothing more than an ordinary lab coat. There was no trace of any Supreme Benevolence on it.

Once everyone had put on their coats, the atmosphere in the conference room somehow grew warm, as though they had truly become one big family, harmonious and welcoming.

Then a gaunt doctor, so emaciated he looked like a dried corpse, stepped forward and pointed at the two people standing at the front.

"We've been especially busy lately. These two will be joining the Emergency Department."

Behind him, those still waiting in line said nothing and only smiled as they waited. Under those eerie gazes, the two stiff Chosen Ones at the front were taken away by the Emergency Department staff.

“These two will come to Surgery,” said a doctor with four constantly writhing arms as he made his selection.

“We also need one for Internal Medicine.”

“Infectious Diseases needs one as well.”

***

With just a few casual words, the drawn-in Chosen Ones were picked apart like livestock and led away one by one until only Ji Jue remained.

The last to approach was Mr. Qian, who had been standing off to the side with that fixed smile on his face. He seemed to be holding a roster as he stared blankly at Ji Jue, his nostrils twitching slightly as if sniffing the air. “Hm? Why's there one left? Forget it. It doesn’t matter. Come with me. Don’t lag behind.”

And so, under the watchful eyes of the director and the many doctors, Ji Jue finally walked out of that conference room, following behind Mr. Qian, who let out a crackling, eerie laugh.

Unfortunately, he didn’t feel the slightest sense of relief. If anything, it felt like he was walking even deeper into hell. The corridor beyond was a complete wreck, covered in filth. The bloodstains splattered across the walls were already long dried. The air was filled with an unshakable stench of blood mixed with disinfectant. Faintly, one could hear wails or mournful cries, or perhaps frenzied roars and angry screams.

Outside the windows was only an empty courtyard area, with two buildings standing apart. Between them wandered bizarre creatures that still vaguely resembled humans. Beyond that, everything was shrouded in thick fog. Within the fog, something enormous seemed to be slowly writhing, but it was impossible to see clearly.

Ding.

The elevator descended. Inside, the walls were covered in deep scratches, streaked with dark red marks left by desperate fingers clawing at the metal. The lights flickered on and off intermittently.

Mr. Qian never took his eyes off Ji Jue. His head slowly twisted on his shoulders, turning a full one-hundred-and-eighty degrees, yet the warm, welcoming smile plastered across his face never changed.

When the elevator doors opened, Ji Jue heard a piercing scream from a consultation room. It came from one of the Chosen Ones who had been taken earlier. “No, fuck you, go to hell! Go to hell! I don’t want to stay here... I— I—”

A figure burst out of the room at incredible speed, but even faster than him were the patients waiting densely packed in the corridor. Some were hunched over, some were little more than shriveled husks, while others were grotesquely swollen beyond recognition. None of them looked recognizably male or female. The moment the fleeing man appeared, they rushed after him like a tidal wave.

The man disappeared beneath the crowd in the blink of an eye. No matter how much he struggled, they pinned him to the ground and bit down with open mouths like ravenous beasts. A violent, gluttonous feeding frenzy followed, until even the blood on the floor was licked clean in desperate hunger. The creatures were seemingly still starving.

Slowly, they turned their heads back. Faces smeared with minced flesh and blood looked up, their hollow eyes staring directly at Ji Jue, but, as if afraid of something, the creatures did not dare to approach.

An icy hand had settled on Ji Jue’s shoulder. Mr. Qian still wore that enthusiastic smile, not bothering to conceal the twisted malice beneath his flesh. “See that? That’s what happens to those who disobey hospital rules. Starting today, you are the resident doctor under my supervision. Don’t worry. If you run into any problems at work, I'll be more than happy to guide you.”

His other deformed hand pointed at the corpse on the ground.

“This is your first lesson: stay at your post. Never become the kind of doctor who flees in the face of duty.”

Ji Jue’s eye twitched. After a long silence, he couldn’t help but ask, “Excuse me, what's the pay like at this hospital?”

Mr. Qian fell silent, as if he had frozen in place. Even the smile on his face stiffened before slowly twisting into something hideous. “A good doctor must know how to sacrifice for others and to devote themselves selflessly. Don't ask questions that are harmful to you.”

Alright, got it. So even in a damn Time Ruin people are made to work for free.

Ji Jue wisely decided not to keep probing Mr. Qian’s thought process or whatever passed for logic in his head. Instead, he smoothly changed the subject.

“So where are we going?”

Mr. Qian’s smile returned as he lifted the clipboard in his hand. “Excellent question. You’re dedicated to your duties and eager to contribute. Let me see... the hospital’s been pretty busy lately, and there are a lot of vacancies. We’re short-staffed everywhere. The position assigned to an outstanding recruit like you is...”

He paused, then looked up solemnly. “Obstetrics and Gynecology.”